Multi purpose crossover

[tomchennells]

hi there,

 

im do a whole variety of pa work and im looking for a crossover to use for diffrent systyms, however all will be 2 way and stereo powered off crown and qsc amps, all bins are single 15s and all tops are single 12s and / or tens with compression horns

 

basically everything from a 2k settup consisting of one pair of bins and one pair of tops to a 10k of 8 bins and 8 tops

 

if it was easy to adjust and settup that would be a bonus, and I dont want to spend crazy money

 

have looked at the behringer stuff but also have been recomended something like a dbx?

 

 

hard to know whats the best option really as at heart im a lampie, any advice would be great

 

 

tom

 

 

ps. the cabs are all deltec, bins bx16 8ohm 600w, tops gx12 8ohm 450w, gx10 8ohm 300w

[dbuckley]

Being how we're in the 21st century, what you really want a loudspeaker processor.

 

Start point is the Behringer DCX 2496. It's incredible value for money, and even people who hate Behringer kit admit (albeit sometimes grudgingly) that it isn't a copy of anything and it does actually work pretty well. Next step after that is the dbx Driverack (but not the Driverack PA), but it's a fairly big step.

[tomchennells]

just looked it up and that dbx is a serious bit of kit!!

 

Are these units really good enough for me to not need anything else beetween my desk and amp rack?

[Rob_Beech]

the higher driveracks are good bits of kit but if you are wanting a step up from the DCX2496 you have to take a large leap in price. Avoid th Drive Rack PA at all costs, we don't go 5 minutes on here without mentioning it so it should be easy to find details as to why its bad if yo have a look around.

 

the BSS Minidrive or if you are feeling a bit better off the omnidrive are IMO fantastic bits of kit that I'd sooner use than any of the dbx range. Again though, you are looking in excess of £1000 for the cheaper of the 2.

 

Used properly the DCX2496 is a superb unit and recalling presets is simply a couple of buttons and a scroll through a list. 3 inputs 6 outputs gives you the ability to run a centre fill or some delays either off the FOH signal, or a separate mono one.

 

Rob

[mervaka]

I have a DCX, can't fault it yet! though I still prefer to have analogue EQ before it in the signal chain.

[dbuckley]

Are these units really good enough for me to not need anything else beetween my desk and amp rack?

 

Yes.

 

You may prefer to have a graphic in there, but for the functional duties of room equalisation, crossovering, time aligning, providing a mono sub feed, providing delay feeds, and protective limiting, a loudspeaker management unit is everything in one box. Add to that preset recall, so you can configure it for different configurations you've used previously at the touch of a button, security locking to stop people playing, remote control from a computer, the list goes on.

 

And the scary thing is that they work so much better than a rackfull of gear that used to try and do the job.

 

Welcome to the digital revolution...

[london sound]

Good value easy to use especially off laptop Void digidrive with either 3 in 6 out or 4 in 8 out.

 

 

 

Ian

[tomchennells]

so when you say remote controll from a computer, you mean it has a usb socket allowing you to adjust settings and monitor levels?

 

the behringer sounds a pretty cheap bit of kit for all that functionality! I assume the additional sugested analogue eq would just be to take out any horrible resinating frequencys or potential electrical hum ? '

 

thanks for all your advice guys

 

 

tom

[Rob_Beech]

The way I look at it, and certainly the way I run my systems is to use the loudspeaker management system such as the Omnidrive or the DCX2496 (I have a couple of each) to set the system to the system. So delays where necessary, crossovers as they should be and eq to get a linear response if eq is required to do this. I'd then use a graphic eq, be it analogue or digital, Again I have each from Behringer and each from Klark Teknik, to tune for the room I am in as this lives at FOH.

 

However, there are times where I need to give a visiting engineer a flat eq to play with so I may tune the room with additional eq settings on the LMS or have an additional graphic eq in a rack in amp world to ensure the visiting act can tune to taste (read : make a dogs dinner of what was a reasonable system)

 

IMO You'd be silly not to go digital with this. There are very few applications today where an analogue crossover is more suited than a digital one (cost and cross manufacturing aside). Whilst the analogue ones are easy enough to use, the ability to press recall, select the system you are using and press load is one less thing to mess about with when you are only given 20 minutes to get in and sound check. (Of course, this is irrelevant as it's all been prepped before the show....hasn't it? )

 

 

Rob

 

 

Edit (c0mputers bit)

 

 

The units are not all identical but often it is network control rather than usb. It's not uncommon for amp racks to have wire1ess r0uters in the back of them connected to your crossovers (and more recently to amps aswell), a 1aptop picks up the wire1ess network and using the software provided by the manufacturer, various settings can be altered and monitored from your c0mputer. This means that if for a part of a show with speech like a conference, you may wish to mute subs and unmute some delay speakers, this can be done from your seat, and then returned to a previous state for the next item which may be a band. On a personal note, I'd rather use matrices from the desk to do this as it gives more flexibility. This of course is rarely possible without a digital crossover (or amps with dsp built in).

[tomchennells]

my two crowns have dsp built in, id be lying if I said I knew how to use it in conjunction with a digital speaker managment systm though! ??

 

there brand new crown xti 2000s

 

and I also have a qsc 2500 and 1500 which are a few years old and are just what I would call straight power amps without the gadgets and much heavier than there new electronic lightweight counterparts!!

 

would I be better using the crowns for tops or bins ?

[Rob_Beech]

I'm using XTI4000's for lots of things now, they seem happy on tops or subs. However your 2000's with somewhat less power may not be enough to drive big subs. Best way is to try them out.

 

If you are using a LMS then 9 times out of 10 you would switch off the dsp on the xti's as it isn't needed. The only time you'd use it aswell would be if you had a pair of delays that for some reason you HAD to run on the FOH signal, you could set delay times, or if you had a particular box of the array pointing helplessly at a pillar, you could use the on board eq for that amp channel to reduce anything nasty whilst leaving the rest as the crossover.

[Ken Hughes]

And ...... getting back to the original crossover thread the Ashly Protea 3:24CL shouldn't be ignored.

 

3in 6 out, place any input to any output, mono sub, eq, limiting, phase and under £600.00 it's a really decent item; user friendly too.

 

Worth a look before you decide.

 

 

 

Ken Hughes

[tomchennells]

thanks very much for all that advice guys, much appreciated, I think ill go with a behhringer dcx 2496 and see how I can get it sounding from the amp racks, then ill propably stick a dbx eq foh as suggested

 

hopefully the crowns should be fine to power the bins, there only single 15s

 

 

tom